NRC thinking about licensing issues for small reactors

A workshop with industry leaders explores the issues

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as part of its commitment to transparency, does a lot of its thinking out loud and in the light of day. One of the latest iterations of this practice is a recent Commission meeting on small reactors held at the NRC offices April 6th. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko set the stage for the meeting explaining its agenda.

“Our meeting today will focus on policy issues concerning design certifications for new and advanced reactors. Specifically, the Commission will discuss the strengths of the design certification process, potential areas for improvement, and the lessons we might apply to the advanced reactor area. We also will have to grapple with some general policy issues that need to be worked through before the potential approval of any combined license (COL) applications or the possible submission of advanced reactor design certification requests.”

It is significant that this is the first meeting of the Commission attended by newly sworn in Commissioner Magwood and Commissioner Ostendorff. Commissioner Apostolakis will be officially sworn in on April 23rd.

Most of the small reactor developers presented at the meeting except Bill Gate’s Terrapower project which has been the subject of some media hype. It’s still not clear what relationship Terrapower has with Toshiba and its sodium-cooled nuclear battery. See more details below in a news article from Der Spiegel.

This type of meeting is a good window into the coming challenges for the NRC and the developer community. Both get a chance to see what it will take to develop “complete” designs of, in some cases, entirely new reactors that require safety reviews to be certified by the agency.

Links to presentations

The NRC posted electronic copies for public access of all of the presentations made at the workshop. There are more than a dozen links so go to this NRC web page to access them.

Germany interested in small nukes

German newspaper Der Spiegel has an interesting review of the world of small reactors, in English, which includes extensive comments by anti-nuclear groups. As you might expect, several of them are alarmed at the prospect of affordable and efficient reactors that could be widely deployed around the globe.

Overall, the piece is a good example of the “he said, she said” school of journalism. In that respect, it is worth reading to see how the U.S. small reactor world is viewed in Europe.

The article also notes the U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu wants to set aside some of the $54 billion in federal loan guarantees the Obama administration wants from Congress to support small reactor projects. No details were provided beyond that broad news note.

Hat tip to Tamar Cerafici who occasionally blogs here.

# # #